[HN Gopher] Italy's Sun Motorway (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
Italy's Sun Motorway (2021)
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 40 points
Date : 2024-07-28 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.domusweb.it)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.domusweb.it)
| kkfx wrote:
| As a Ligurian, it was not so exceptional, surely, back then and
| still today passing though so many mountains and valleys keeping
| the road as straight and leveled as possible was remarkable in
| engineering terms BUT they have created a monster because back
| then it was a new road, so normal traffic goes through other
| roads, and start to took the new shiny fast one once done.
| Unfortunately NO ONE have planned how to re-create it because
| back than the idea was that the concrete it's like a natural
| rock, nearly eternal, so there was no plan on how to rebuild any
| bridge or tube when it will be needed. Meanwhile old roads
| essentially a re-paved ancient Roman Via Aurelia, was not much
| developed, still traversing ANY single Ligurian dwelling, so it's
| definitively unable to sustain today traffic even for short
| segment to re-made a single bridge or tube at a time.
|
| Here and there some new segments are built and once done traffic
| got diverted on the new segment, but the overall aging
| infrastructure is in a terrible shape and while some new segments
| advance there is still no complete plan because in many segments
| there is simply no solution so far to build something new due to
| excess buildings around, not adapt orography and so on.
|
| That's not an isolated case, essentially all other the world all
| infra are made without any idea about what to do after their
| expectable service life BUT the Italian issue is also due to the
| fast construction: if you build something SLOWLY some parts of a
| big infra will need to be rebuild at a certain point in future,
| while the others are still operational, so you can upgrade them
| at an equally slow speed. If you develop all at once as quick as
| possible well, it will reach the end of life all at once as well.
| So an original remarkable effort demand another one, than another
| one more etc and no one can foresee the economical, political,
| condition when the infra end of life will be reached.
|
| In general MOST post-WWI infra and buildings are now at end of
| life, all together, since they was built quickly all together and
| as any quick thing was badly built, with mass speculation, no
| intention to even trying imaging the future and so on.
|
| We now know in many fields that creating megaprojects might be
| exiting but way to often the outcome is TERRIBLE, so it's better
| build much little things instead of few big. A lesson learnt by
| many, but still to be learned by many others.
| reddalo wrote:
| The Sun Motorway between Bologna and Florence is double, as the
| article says: there is the original road (now called
| "panoramica") and the new super-direct ("direttissima", also
| called Variante di Valico).
|
| The old road is still interesting to see, even though it's in
| worse conditions and it takes a longer time to cross. Give it a
| try on your next Italian road trip!
| airstrike wrote:
| Never knew it was a thing until a couple of summers ago our train
| from Florence to Como was delayed by like 3 hours, so we canceled
| the tickets, rented a nice little black Fiat 500 and drove. I was
| enjoying the sights all the way through as is tradition in Italy
| (and the old continent in general), but if I recall correctly
| there was a point on the road where we could choose to take the
| "Panoramica" route and wow, did it pay off. I will forever
| treasure that little unplanned experience.
| epolanski wrote:
| I have traveled all around Europe by car and the autostrada del
| sole is an unmatched engineering marvel in the old continent.
|
| I was always super proud of the quality and maintenance of
| Italian highways. Somewhere around the turn of the century I
| stopped feeling as proud because maintenance started lacking and
| other countries that I visited (eastern Europe) has also built
| some very good roads.
|
| One thing to notice though is that the highways are expensive.
|
| From Rome to Milan in a small car you're paying around 60EURs in
| tolls.
|
| That's not a small price, especially as it is way higher than 15
| day passes for all highways in some other central European
| countries.
|
| It is very expensive though.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-28 23:01 UTC)